


Five Things ficlets - House (mostly gen, mostly PG-13)

by Roga



Category: No Fandom
Genre: 5 Times, Backstory, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-23
Updated: 2007-06-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 23:54:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/817522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roga/pseuds/Roga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various five times ficlets: </p><p>Five Times Wilson Calls House; Five Times House Was Wrong; Five Times Chase Eats During A Differential; Five Birthdays House And Cuddy Celebrated Together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things ficlets - House (mostly gen, mostly PG-13)

**Five Times Wilson Calls House** , for [](http://elva-barr.livejournal.com/profile)[**elva_barr**](http://elva-barr.livejournal.com/)

**1.** In 1990, when Wilson calls his brother at the office and dials 5 instead of 8. It's a wrong number, and before he can finish his apology to the guy who answered the guy hangs up in his face. Wilson calls again, just to point out how rude that was. The guy replies with an unfavorable description of Wilson's mother in Latin, which prompts a very strict telling off by Wilson in French. They hang up at the same time. Neither of them remember the conversation afterwards; it was just one of those things.

**2.** 1996\. He doesn't have enough cash for a cab. He calls House, feeling like the familiar ball of dread has finally settled permanently in his stomach, tells him about the redhead whose name he's already forgotten. "I'm too drunk to drive," he professes, willing himself to keep his voice steady.

"Where are you?"

Wilson opens the door quietly, looks around for the street address on the front door sign. "1480, Livingston Ave, New Brunswick."

"You're—"

_You're an idiot_ , Wilson completes in his mind, and wonders why House cut himself off.

Instead, House just says, his voice tired and gravelly from sleep, "I'll be there in half an hour. I'll drop you off at home."

**3.** 2006.

"What."

"Was that a question or a statement?"

"What do you want, Wilson?"

"How are you?"

"Shot and crippled, with a nylon thread holding my jugular together, how are you?"

"Handsome, healthy and fit."

"Don't you have any work to do instead of being a pain in the ass all the damn time?"

"I'm just checking up, no need to get snippy. Have you been doing anything other than watch Comedy Central?"

"Writing letters of prayer to Allah that you'd stop calling me whenever you're bored at work."

"It kind of feels like role reversal, doesn't it? Except that I'm way too nice for anyone to ever have shot me."

"Just bring me a rifle. And by the way, I don't think that tense you just used actually exists."

"Oh, I wanted to tell you—oh, damn. Never mind."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing."

"Wilson. What?"

"Seriously, it was nothing."

"What did you want to _tell me_?"

"I swear, House, it wasn't important, never mind."

"For god's sake, Wilson, just _tell_ — Fuck. Are you doing this on purpose?"

"Doing what?"

"God, you're really gearing for that Most Annoying Person Ever Award again, aren't you? Why don't you give someone else a shot sometime?"

"That doesn't sound like much fun."

"Stop calling me."

"I'll be over tonight."

"Whatever."

"Switch the channel sometime today, and do your physio."

"Fuck you."

"Goodbye, House."

**4.** Christmas Eve, 2006. He calls twice. The first time, the phone is busy. The second time, the machine picks up. Wilson doesn't leave a message. He drives to House's apartment instead.

**5.** July, 2007.

"House?"

"Yeah."

"I need to borrow your, um. Your flaming cane."

"I've always loved that euphemism."

"Ha. Jokes like that are why you're always the hit of the party. You'll lend me the cane?"

"Do you need it for your naughty Fred Astaire act?"

"Oh ho! He keeps 'em coming. I also need your _Ride of the Valkyries_ CD."

"You don't already have a copy? Francis Ford Coppola would be ashamed."

"I'm Jewish. I don't own Wagner."

"So few words; so much hypocrisy."

"And one last thing. I need some nitro."

" _Glycerin_?"

"Just a small tank."

"What the hell makes you think I have a tank of nitroglycerin lying around?"

"House, please. I know you."

"Okay, fine, I do. But what the hell do _you_ need it for?"

"Oh… nothing."

"Yeah, like that's gonna work."

"Look, you've borrowed thousands of dollars from me over the course of our friendship, while all I've ever done is continuously lie to you. The least you could do is lend me some explosives. It's only the next natural step."

"You know what? I'll do it. But I want Mannings."

"What, as a hostage?"

"Hey, I'm down three fellows. You have a dozen doctors at your service. Seems like a fair trade."

"I'm not giving you an oncologist!"

"Then you're not getting any nitro."

"Damn it! Fine. You can have… Callahan. For a month."

"Are you kidding me? That douchebag?"

"I'll add Green too, but that's my final offer."

"She's the one with the D-cup?"

"Not that I've _checked_ , obviously, but… yeah."

"Two months for both of them, and it's a deal."

"I'll be over to pick up the nitro tonight. Great doing business with you, sir."

"Wait, you haven't told me what you need it for yet—"

"."

"Wilson? Wilson? Fucking _hung up_ on me. Where does he learn these things? Asshole."

**Five Times House Was Wrong** , for [](http://hi-falootin.livejournal.com/profile)[**hi_falootin**](http://hi-falootin.livejournal.com/)

**1.** When he's ten, he's convinced that the fact that Mrs. Jardine says he's the best musician his age she's seen his years, and the fact that it's just an hour away from the base, and the fact that he _got the scholarship_ (even if he had to forge his mother's signature on the application form, he got the _full scholarship_ ), means that they won't move away again. It's one of the best schools in the world.

His dad tells him they're moving to Japan anyway.

He tears up the catalogue, angry with himself for getting his hopes up. He's not a kid anymore. He should have known better.

**2.** The first time he sees Chase, with his crisp white lab coat and his crisp white teeth and his silky hair and earnest face, he orders Grant to dig the stack of resumes back out of the trash can, because this porcelain puppet isn't going to last a month.

**3.** He is sure Stacy will want to change him. There's no way… there's no _way_ she'd want _this_.

**4.** Even Cuddy notices his good mood when he arrives at the hospital at—well, on time, for once, which is a big clue in itself. You might want to watch your step today, she tells him, and he replies with a smirk that she might want to watch hers too, because someone might get the idea that April Fools is a good opportunity to post certain pictures of certain former students of certain universities in Michigan getting drunk and _friendly_ on the internet – or at least a good opportunity to Photoshop those pictures into existence. I'm not scared of you, she says, heels clicking confidently as she enters her office, I'm just saying, you're headed towards a den of three people you've spent the past two years antagonizing and another person whom you've pushed to the verge of a mental breakdown. And it's April Fools. You might be surprised.

"With this bunch of losers? _Please_ ," he snorts. With a spring in his limp, he heads to his office.

**5.** The good thing is that the patient ends up not dying.

The thing that sucks, the thing that really really sucks, is that Foreman was the one who caught it, and that it was fucking lupus after all. Not only does he now owe each of his fellows five hundred dollars (yes, his conviction may have been a bit over-zealous), but now he might as well throw away the "It's… lupus!" skit he'd written a year ago, just in case. Which really is a waste. There'd been a song and everything.

**Five Times Chase Eats During A Differential** , for [](http://sangria-lila.livejournal.com/profile)[**sangria_lila**](http://sangria-lila.livejournal.com/)

**1.** Every year, on the three weeks following Christmas, while Chase is slowly working his way through the office's traditional candy canes. During those weeks differential diagnoses averagely take 20% longer, because no one is ever quite able to fully concentrate.

**2.** After he sees _Super Size Me_ , he swears off McDonald's, where he has only eaten a few times anyway, for the rest of his life. The next day he arrives at the office with a double quarter-pounder and fries.

What? He was friggin' _starving_. Shut up.

**3.** It's the middle of the night, and Chase has just discovered the wonder of Häagen-Dazs coffee flavored ice cream. Or, to be precise, allowed a patient's girlfriend to feed him an entire carton, which is all kinds of unethical, in Foreman's opinion, which he doesn't bother keeping to himself.

"She was just being friendly!" Chase protests, scraping the last contents of the carton with a plastic spoon.

"Whatever," Foreman says, rolling his eyes.

"Really!"

"Okay."

"No, I mean really!"

Foreman scowls. "I said okay."

"Okay!"

Foreman gives Chase a closer look. His pupils are dilated.

Great. Chase on a sugar high. This was bound to be painful.

"How much ice cream, exactly, did you have?" Foreman asks.

"Just a carton! And a half!" Chase smiles brightly, waving the spoon around. "I couldn't take any more, I was too full from the chocolate cake!"

Foreman suppresses the urge to groan. Or to punch Chase's lights out. "The patient's stable now. Why don't you go home, and I'll monitor him till the morning?"

"Oh, no!" Chase exclaims. "I want to help! Now that we know the antibiotics are working on the infection, we can narrow down the other possibilities! Come on!"

Chase gives the spoon one last lick and flings it aside, attacking House's whiteboard with a red marker and the enthusiasm of some kind of diagnostic sugar-hyped superhero.

Foreman sighs. Chase's babbling is only mostly comprehendible, and his thickened, late night accent isn't helping.

He really hates the night shift.

**4.** "Yo, Blinkey!"

Chase doesn't know what cultural reference House is referring to but he knows he's talking to him, because he's using that withering tone again, which is approximately one level above "Fetch!". Chase puts another piece of baklava on his plate and walks over to the round table where House is sitting with the two other fellows. "What?"

"We're doing a differential," Foreman says between gritted teeth.

Chase blinks. "What, now?"

"Yes," Cameron sighs, and downs the last of a glass of red wine.

"But, um. I don't think we're supposed to do that here."

House is writing symptoms on the tablecloth with a black marker. "If you're going to go on _thinking_ , at least concentrate on why this woman is vomiting black ooze."

"That's not even a real symptom," Foreman says, although he says it in that resigned tone that means that he has dealt with House, and lost.

Chase grows even more puzzled, and Cameron whispers, "He's been making them up for ten minutes now. Does anyone have more wine?"

"But—" Chase says again, "House, this is your son's _bris_!"

House lifts his head from the tablecloth. " _Cuddy's_ son's. Black ooze vomit and itchy feet? Anyone?"

"You're sitting here trying to fake work when meters away from here they are snipping off that baby's—"

"Okay, Blinkey," House snaps, "unless you want me to go all mohel on _your_ ass, sit down and do your damn job."

"But," and more disbelief than this cannot possibly fill Chase's voice, "but I'm eating!"

House grabs Chase's plate and stuffs all five remaining pieces of baklava into his mouth. "Now you're noth," he says, mouth full. Cameron looks like she's about to gag. Foreman is eying the bar longingly.

Chase sits down and thinks hard about black ooze.

**5.** House is giving a lecture at a medical conference in Vegas and while he's away, Chase is in charge. Chase is on top of things. Chase is single-handedly running the PPTH Department of Diagnostics, and damn, he's good at it. He pisses off Nurse Brenda before lunch and makes an old grandmother in the clinic cry. When Cuddy forces a case on him he avoids the patient for as long as possible, and then spouts off a complicated metaphor about Sonny (the infection) and Cher (the liver) that nobody else is able to follow. He downs tic-tacs by the dozen, extracting them from a brown pill bottle he transferred them into for safer storage.

Okay, so he only got to be in charge because Cameron's on vacation and Foreman is sick, but he's damn good at the job and will do whatever he has to do to duplicate House's mojo in order to diagnose this woman. Even if it means stealing a lunch marked with the note: _I have no idea how you've gotten your hands on my lunch all the way from Vegas, but if this disappears while I'm at a board meeting a) YOU WILL PAY, and b) you will die of rat poison to be sprinkled in one of your meals at a later date_. Chase decides to risk it.

On the third bite of his salami sandwich he suddenly gets it ( _of course_ it was essential thrombocythemia, _how_ could he have missed it?) Chase wipes his hands, says a quick prayer of thanks to Wilson's food and House's mojo, and goes off to call a nurse.

**Five Birthdays House and Cuddy Celebrated Together** , written for [](http://zulu.livejournal.com/profile)[**zulu**](http://zulu.livejournal.com/) in honor of the joyous occasion of her birthday.

**1\. 1982.** He was drunker than he'd planned but not as drunk as he let show, and asked her if twenty three was enough to earn him the whole shebang, or just a blowjob. She walked him to a cab, and returned to her dorm.

**2\. 1997.** She's been getting calls from various Princeton Jewish Unattended Adults all day, inviting her for Shabbat potluck dinners and couple folk dances and wishing her a happy fortieth birthday. "I'm not forty," she snaps at House over the phone. "It's an over forty group," he replies, "It was the only way they'd let you in."

She hangs up in his face, and doesn't quite remember why she'd offered him a job.

**3\. 2003.** She really is forty this time. She loves her work, she loves her family, she loves her life. She has no regrets. House mocks her all day long, but shows up on her doorstep late at night with a bottle of cheap champagne. She lets him in. "You never stood a chance," he murmurs smugly between kisses, trailing his fingers from her waistline to her breasts. "Midlife crisis," she says, and so what if it turns out more like a gasp? The next thing she does shuts him up anyway. It's a _fun_ birthday.

And she doesn't regret it in the morning, which is the best thing of all.

**4\. 2006.** He's pissed off at the world and at Tritter and at Wilson and at Cuddy, but at Cuddy worst of all, because he shouldn't have to feel _guilty_ every time he looks at her when it's all _their damn fault_. She doesn't ask him what he wants for his birthday, because she knows what his answer will be, and she's not going to give him any more pills.

They don't speak to each other all day long, which is probably for the best. At the moment, it's the one option that offers them both the least amount of pain.

**5\. 2008.** "Oh my god, House, I fucking hate you," she cries, the words tearing out of her throat as she _pushes_ , and fuck, fuck.

"She doesn't mean it," House tells Dr. Chen, downs a Vicodin blandly, and stoops to take a closer look at Cuddy's vagina. "Interesting," he notes.

"I hate you," she repeats breathlessly, and when Chen pushes House in Cuddy's direction – physically – he finally gives her a comforting limb to crush with the power of ten tons of metal, also known as a woman in labor.

When the baby lets out a healthy, ear-piercing wail, Cuddy's eyes fill with tears, and House wonders whether it's maternal instinct or the kind of relief you feel after a morphine injection that follows a shitload of pain. Her grip on his hand grows even tighter, and he tries to think if she'd notice if he replaced it with his cane.

"You know I really love you, right?" she whispers.

"Yeah," he says absently, trying to get a better look at the baby, which is getting scrubbed of all the inner-Cuddy-fluids it was enveloped in when it popped out.

"You know everything I'm saying now is just the hormones and the epidural and the pain, right?"

"Yeah." It has brown hair. That's odd. He doesn't remember ever having seen a brown-haired baby.

"House," she says in awe, the tiniest tremble in her voice.

He looks down at her face, can't help smiling at the look in her eyes. "Yeah," he agrees.


End file.
